t once a year."

He was going home after the apricot picking was over; he felt that in
vacation he should earn at least his fare to Washington and back.

"I'm sure she must be a very good mother to deserve that devotion,"
said Mrs. Tiffany, warming to him.

"She deserves more," he said, a kind of inner glow rising to his
white-and-pink boyish face. That same glow,--Mrs. Tiffany might have
noticed this and did not--illuminated him whenever, from across the
table, Chester's laugh or his energetic crack on a sentence called a
forced attention. Mr. Heath deferred always to this louder
personality; kept for him the anxious and eager interest of a mother
toward her young. Gradually, this interest absorbed both Mr. Heath and
Mrs. Tiffany. The table talk became a series of monologues by young
Bertram Chester, Judge Tiffany throwing in just enough replies to spur
and guide him.

"No, I don't belong to any fraternity," said the confident youth,
"don't believe in them. They plenty beat me for football captain last
year too. When I came to college, they didn't want me. After I made
the team and got prominent, they began to rush me. Then I didn't want
_them_."

"It might have been easier for Bert if he _had_ joined them," said
Heath. "They don't like to have their members working at--with their
hands; they always find them snap jobs if they are poor and
prominent."

"Oh, I don't know," said Bertram. "The barbs elected me business
manager of the _Occident_ last season--I didn't make the team until I
was a Sophomore, you know--and that more than paid my way. This year
I've got a billiard hall with Sandy McCusick.

"He used to be a trainer for the track team," explained Bertram. "I
steer him custom and he runs it. Ought to get me through next year
over and above. That's one reason I'm picking fruit and resting my
mind this summer instead of hustling for money in the city."

"And then?" asked the Judge.

"Law, I guess."

"I am an attorney myself."

"I guess I know that!"

"What school have you chosen?"

"None, I guess. I don't want to afford the time. Yes, I know you want
good preparation, but I'd rather be preparing in an office, making a
little and keeping my eye open for chances. I may find, before my
three years are up, that it isn't law I want, but business."

"I'm not a college man myself," said the Judge, "I got my education by
reading nights on the farm, and pounded out what law I knew in an
office at Virgini